Jill K. Bartell

Northwestern Mutual Capital invests in middle-market companies located across the globe primarily in North America and Europe with an EBITDA of greater than USD 10 million. The firm targets companies operating in a broad range of sectors and industries. It participates in debt, equity, buyout and mezzanine financing for growth transactions with an investment size of USD 10 - 150 million. The firm also makes co-investments.

Quest seeks to generate superior excess returns for their investors. They believe that pairing their fundamental research efforts and differentiated approach to portfolio construction can produce these excess returns with an attractive risk profile.

Hobert & Svoboda's (H&S) investment strategies are put into action through a select group of no-load mutual funds or individual stocks depending on the client's desires and size of portfolio. The firm offers four types of portfolios including conservative growth, moderate growth, high growth and the domestic stock portfolio. In selecting individual stocks in which to invest, the firm's primary objective is long-term capital appreciation by producing returns comparable to the S&P 500 index. Portfolios are actively managed and consist primarily of companies that are greater than $2 billion in market capitalization. H&S utilizes a focused bottom-up approach that identifies companies whose growth potential is not fully reflected in their current stock market valuations. This approach is grounded in fundamental research and meticulous analytics, not simply the latest trends. The firm considers the following when selecting stocks: (1) the company's prospects for capitalizing on broad investment and economic trends (2) the company's ability to maintain inherent sustainable advantages over its competitors (3) whether the company has dominant market position and strong franchise value in its sector (4) whether the company has consistent earnings growth (5) the financial strength of the company and (6) the intrinsic value and the growth potential for the company's industry. In selecting mutual funds for a client's portfolio, HS looks for managers with distinctive investment styles and utilizes a number of outside services to perform the initial due diligence on each fund. Funds within each asset class are evaluated based upon: (1) performance that falls within the top tier of funds in their category (2) consistent performance over market cycles versus episodic returns (3) internal factors such as sector weightings, P/E ratios, turnover statistics and standard deviation (4) each fund manager's qualifications, tenure and consistency of investment philosophy/style and (5) each fund family's compliance standards. Factors that would cause H&S to consider replacing a fund could include, among others, a change in the fund manager, performance over several quarters that varies significantly from other funds in its peer group, a change in the manager's investment philosophy/style, or an investment in stocks or bonds inconsistent with the fund's stated investment objective. Based upon changes in market conditions, H&S may also reallocate funds and/or remove an asset class to reduce risk and improve returns.

Quest seeks to generate superior excess returns for their investors. They believe that pairing their fundamental research efforts and differentiated approach to portfolio construction can produce these excess returns with an attractive risk profile.

Investment firm specializing in contrarian investing